


Carrying out my design to shatter the enemies (The "Show him what little girls are made of" Remix)

by rthstewart



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-21
Updated: 2011-04-21
Packaged: 2017-10-18 10:59:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rthstewart/pseuds/rthstewart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wise is the man who heeds this warning – cross not the desert nor the Gentle Barbarian Queen of the North.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carrying out my design to shatter the enemies (The "Show him what little girls are made of" Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [metonomia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonomia/gifts).
  * Inspired by [She Maintained This Estate](https://archiveofourown.org/works/99406) by [metonomia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonomia/pseuds/metonomia). 



A sincere thanks to "S" and "A" for the beta assistance.

o00oo

 _"Our enslavement will not be turned to our benefit, but the Lord our God, will maintain it to our disgrace.  Therefore, my brothers, let us set an example for our kinsmen. Their lives depend on us, and the defense of the sanctuary, the temple, and the altar rests with us._ _... You must not inquire into what I am doing, for I will not tell you until my plan has been accomplished."_... _now is the time for aiding your heritage and for carrying out my design to shatter the enemies who have risen against us"_  
Book of Judith 8:23-24, 34; 13:5

o00oo

They have argued for two days which now means only that the decision that was inevitable was delayed that much longer.  Lucy is furious, Peter is unhappy, and Edmund is sullenly accepting.  Rabadash and his army caught them unawares and now are nearly at their door, only a swift day’s ride away.  Narnia is a peaceful, natural land of woodland creatures and Tree spirits – their complacent subjects are preparing for a cold winter to come, not the invasion of a despot.  The Narnian soldiery, fell though they are, must be called up from their far flung caves, pastures, and dens.  It will be a day before Narnia’s might is mustered and another day thereafter before they may march out to halt the invader.

“I will ride out and meet him,” Susan announces, cutting through the arguments of her brothers and sister with a slice of her hand and a quelling look. 

“You must not!” Lucy demands. 

“Rabadash may yet accept my parley,” Susan tells her sister.

Edmund shakes his head in disbelieving disgust.  “And if he does not?”

“Then I have bought Narnia a day’s preparation we would not otherwise have.  Do not waste it.”

“This is madness!” Peter bellows, slamming his fist to the table.  “We gain nothing and lose everything!”

“I know what I must do,” Susan replies.  "And so do you."  She rises from the table.  Their discussion is over and she has plans to make.

She hurries out of Cair Paravel and disappears into an ancient Grove near the Palace.  It is dark and heavy in these woods, and moss dresses the Trees.  A Dryad Crone rules here.  She is an evergreen Oak who taught the White Witch the magiks to enspell the Woods.  Old and cunning, this Tree knows what timber-starved Calormenes will do to her kind.  The Dryad Crone mixes poisons from the grindings of her own dead children. 

“My Queen,” the Tree murmurs in greeting, swaying, but not bowing, for Oaks do not bow.

Susan explains what she must have. 

The Dryad cackles.  Her dry leaves quiver and dead children fall from her wizened branches.  From her gnarled hands into Susan’s trembling ones she pushes stoppered vials:  a musky perfume for Susan’s racing pulse points that makes the violent man careless, scented oil for her hair that dulls a lecher’s guard; and a draught that will induce a sleep of the dead when a man’s lust is spent.

“These won’t protect you, poppet,” the Crone whispers, stroking Susan’s cheek with a gray twig finger.

“I do not need protection,” the Queen says.  “I need opportunity.”

Clutching the precious vials, Susan hurries away; her Panther guard follows, silent and comprehending the plan that is taking shape.  The Great Cat approves of her Queen’s Cat-like wiles.  Susan next seeks the Centauress who guards their armory. 

“Show me a curved blade,” Susan demands.  “Teach me how to use it!”  For though Susan knows the bow and the knife, and even the straight Narnian sword at need, the weapons of the Tarkaans are strange in her hands.

The Centauress demonstrates how to twist and swing a Calormene blade once, twice, so that even a Gentle Queen might cut a Calormene head from a Calormene neck.   Susan practices with the foreign-feeling blade on fruits and blocks until the Centauress is satisfied. 

Susan next visits a Mare in the stables.  The Horse is a wise beast and brave.  She listens and consents to carry her Queen to her doom so that Narnia’s greater doom might be avoided. 

To her Panther guard, Susan gives the final instructions for a violated Queen’s justice.  The Cat blinks her obedience and, with a flick of her tail, silently lopes away to see her Queen’s will done.

Susan returns to her rooms to prepare. 

***

Susan feels Lucy’s eyes upon her as she wafts about the room, collecting her perfume and ornaments.  She knows that Lucy does not approve for her sister does not see the plan.  All Lucy sees is Susan stepping into her richest gown, brushing scented oil into her hair, and dabbing perfume at her throat and wrists.  She does not know the calm hides Susan’s pounding heart and deeper still, a plot. 

A parting kiss, farewells to Peter and Edmund, and Susan is gone. 

She rides in silence.  The Mare carries her through the mountains in the next dawn's gray light and fords the river as the sun rises, so that they arrive at the edge of the desert in the highest heat of the day. They rise over a dune and the bright tents and banners of the mighty Calormene army spread out before them.  

The outriders are upon her immediately.  Their swords flash into her eyes, and Susan scrambles for a bow she does not carry before remembering her purpose and raising her hands in surrender. The men crowd around with lustful eyes, grope her, paw her Dryad-cursed hair, and breathe the perfumed poison.

They bring her to Rabadash's tent.  She is thrust before him and stumbles to the ground at his feet.

He laughs.

"Susan of Narnia." His voice caresses her name, a snake winding its way gently around its victim, and she shudders to remember a time when she felt warmed and cherished by his attentions.

"Oh Prince," she begins to weave the lie, "I have come to give myself up to you, so that there need be no war between our lands."

He fists a hand in her hair, yanks her up by a wrist and, in those acts of violence upon her, chooses his fate.

"Nothing can stop my armies now that we are on our way, not even the beauty of a barbarian queen, but because you have come, you may live to be my wife, though I will exact my price for your earlier betrayal in the blood of your brothers and sister."

Rabadash parades his conquest of the Barbarian Queen and forces her to sit with him during his victory feast.  He revels in her magicked scent, strokes her ensorcelled hair and drinks the wine she pours.  He does not see the draught she adds to his drink or hear the whispered spell that binds all together.  When he dismisses his jealous, surly men, all is ready.

The Crone’s magiks do not protect her.  He is maddened, but sober enough.  And so he gloats, strikes, bruises, tears, and finally violates.  It is brutal but it is over quickly.  The spell does its work and Rabadash collapses and rolls away, overtaken and utterly spent.  When Susan is certain he will not wake, it is time to be avenged and to save her people.

Susan rises and gathers the tattered shreds of her gown about her.  Rabadash’s scimitar is by the bed.  Her blood stains the silken sheets and it is the last Narnian blood Rabadash will ever shed.  She tests the scimitar’s edge then raises his curved sword and swings.  Two swipes and it is done, just as the Centauress had shown her. 

Susan gathers the handsome head in the Prince’s own cloak and slips out of the tent.  The Calormene camp is rowdy and loud, given over to drunken merriment at their Prince’s rape of the Barbarian Queen tonight.  They are dulled by the Dryad Crone’s spells and toast the slaughter to come.

The Mare finds Susan in the darkness beyond the fires.  The Horse has chewed away her hobbles and freed herself.  They do not speak, though the Mare’s looks are sympathetic for she knows the wrong committed.  With her sensitive ears, she heard Susan’s pleas and cries.

The Mare flinches as she perceives the cloak leaking Rabadash’s blood.  But she is as brave as her Queen and obligingly dips her shoulder so that Susan may mount.  They glide out of the camp, the Mare stepping softly to spare her Queen any further pain than that which she has already suffered.  They climb the dune and over to the other side.  Susan clutches the Mare’s mane in one hand and her spoil of war in the other.  “Go!”

Following instinct and pinpricks of green and yellow blinking light, the Mare races to the protective eaves of a scraggly wood.  Beneath her, Susan feels the Mare shudder, for no Horse, even one so brave as the Mare, can be at ease as a score of Great Cats slink out from the concealing trees.  There is no jangling armor and clomps of hooves.  There is only the secret stealth of Susan’s Black Panther Guard and her quiet kin.  For though the Griffins, Dwarfs and Wolves look to the Kings and Valiant Queen, the Great Cats of the Claw take their oath to the Gentle Queen.  They have waited for their Queen’s return and at her silent signal, like water flowing down a grassy hill, the Claw glides over the dune and pours into the Calormene camp. 

The men’s drunken songs and snores turn to screams that pierce the night. 

It is over in moments.  Her Panther Guard and a proud Lioness drive two gibbering, bleeding soldiers up the dune to where Susan waits.  With velveted paws, the Cats shove the men to their knees.  Susan recognizes them as two who had groped at her when she arrived in the camp.

Susan unfurls the cloak and holds their Prince up by his hair, just as Rabadash had done to her. 

“Behold, your Tisroc’s heir.  You will find what else remains in his tent.  Return Rabadash’s body to his father with this warning:  Narnia is protected by a great Cat demon of terrible aspect.  We killed the deathless Witch and her one hundred years of winter.  We may do the same again.  Disturb Narnia’s peace again and all of Calormen shall perish.”

The men thrown themselves into the sand, stammer their thanks for the Gentle Queen’s mercy, and crawl back to their reeking camp.

Now, Susan throws caution to the wind.  The Mare gallops her away from the Calormenes; the Cats of the Claw lope beside them.

In the race home, they meet Narnia’s gathering army also bound for Cair Paravel.  The swift ones join them so that at dusk, when they enter Cair Paravel, Susan rides at the head of a great host.  Their mood is somber and the Palace far more so and Susan can guess the cause.  She eschews the offered mounting block of a groom for there is still one thing left to do. 

At her urging, the Mare proudly bears her Queen up the steps and through the front doors of the Palace.  They are flanked by the Leopards, Cheetahs, and Lionesses of Susan’s Claw.  The Horse’s hooves echo on the marbled floors louder than any trumpet fanfare. 

At the Council Room doors, the Faun standing guard greets her with a grim smile.  “Queen Susan,” he says, bowing.  “The Kings and Queen even now meet with the Calormene Ambassador to negotiate your ransom and return.” 

The Faun flings open the doors and Susan rides into the Council Room.  Her brothers and sister leap from their seats with exclamations of amazed joy.  The Calormene Ambassador, a thin and sharp man, is rooted in his chair, shocked. 

Susan is battered and the gown Rabadash shredded cannot conceal his violations.  His marks are there for all the world to see – the savage bites on her breast, the bruises on her neck and wrists, her torn hair.  Susan is not ashamed; she has met violence with violence, she has prevailed, and she has saved Narnia.

From atop the Mare, Susan brandishes her spoil and the blood soaked cloak falls.  She flings the noble, handsome head on to the Council table.  The Calormene Ambassador scrambles away, ashen faced and stammering, as the head of Rabadash rolls down the length of the table.

“We are well met, Ambassador.  Now leave and know that any who cross the desert or the Gentle Barbarian Queen of the North shall suffer this same end.”

She laughs.

 _"Listen to me, my brothers. Take this head and hang it on the parapet of your wall.  At daybreak, when the sun rises on the earth, let each of you seize his weapons, and let all the able-bodied men rush out of the city under command of a captain, as if about to go down into the plain against the advance guard of the Assyrians, but without going down.  They will seize their armor and hurry to their camp to awaken the generals of the Assyrian army. When they run to the tent of Holofernes and do not find him, panic will seize them, and they will flee before you.  Then you and all the other inhabitants of the whole territory of Israel will pursue them and strike them down in their tracks._   Book of Judith 14:1-4

**Author's Note:**

> This is written with a nod to and inspired by other women who have paraded usurper’s heads, including Judith and Cordelia Vorkosigan.  In the case of the story on which this remix is based, the lovely Metonomia states that she was inspired by Artemisia Gentileschi’s painting of Judith slaying Holofernes.  Gentileschi was herself a rape victim and “her trial” was very concerned with her purity and probity rather than those of her assailant.
> 
> Source: Artemisia Gentileschi [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
> 
>  _When they came, she said to them: "Listen to me, you rulers of the people of Bethulia. What you said to the people today is not proper. When you promised to hand over the city to our enemies at the end of five days unless within that time the Lord comes to our aid, you interposed between God and yourselves this oath which you took. ..._   
> _Then Judith said to them: "Listen to me! I will do something that will go down from generation to generation among the descendants of our race.  Stand at the gate tonight to let me pass through with my maid; and within the days you have specified before you will surrender the city to our enemies, the Lord will rescue Israel by my hand.  You must not inquire into what I am doing, for I will not tell you until my plan has been accomplished."_   
> _Book of Judith 8:11, 32-34_
> 
> "Show him what little girls are made of" from Miranda Lambert's [Gunpowder and Lead](http://www.unfaithful-mate.com/gunpowder-and-lead-lyrics.html)  
> 


End file.
